How MH17 was shot down – analysis by Colonel Cassad

Colonel Cassad has just published an interesting analysis about how MH17 was shot down (please see here for the original Russian text: Как убивали малазийский “Боинг”). Uncle Martin has already made a full translation and posted it on the English version of Colonel Cassad’s blog (please see here for the English translation: How the Malaysian “Boeing” was shot down). Since this is very long text, I will not re-post it fully here, but I have decided to make it available for download in ODT, RTF and PDF format (please click here to download the zipped file with all three formats).

In conclusion I would like to indulge in a rather infantile exercise in self-congratulatory “autobackslapping” and point out that the hypothesis I put forth as early as August 4th is holding up to time pretty well. See for yourself:

My disagreement with Colonel Cassad is that I believe that the R-60M missile was used first to hit one engine and slow down MH17 and that the SU-25s guns were used later to finish off the airliner. Still, this difference is trivial. We both agree that missiles and canon fire were used and that no Buk-M1 was used (other than to cue the SU-25 to the correct intercept trajectory, in my hypothesis).

It is important, crucial really, that we NOT allow the AngloZionist to just gently and slowly shove the truth about MH17 into the “memory hole”. Right now, the Imperial media is mounting an truly heroic effort into not mentioning the MH17 topic as if it had never happened. Except that it did and many innocents died in this disgusting false flag attack. We cannot let Russia be alone in demanding that the full truth be revealed about this atrocity and this is why I will continue posting any well researched documents on this topic.

The Saker

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire

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If the missile was first the pilots would’ve had time to be on the radio. first, we don’t know if the pilots did or did not radio anything, second, if the liner was hit in the engine, the pilots were probably scrambling to keep the Airbus flying and avoiding a spin.
just a guess

Sorry, must disagree.
Well, yes, we do know they didn’t get on the radio… assuming the tape from the ATC (the handover from Dnepro to Rostok) is complete. Other nearby planes, of which there were several, would have heard it, too.

These planes are designed to fly okay on one engine, allowing for all sorts of problems, bird strike being a frequent one. The autopilot immediately adjusts for the lack of a running engine.

We don’t know anything from the tape recovered. We are being told by the BS investigators.
Are the Russians involved?
Are there any third party professionals we could trust?
If it was not for the abundance of the first day photography, we would know as much about this flight as about MH 370.
They could tell us anything and we would have to accept it.

Putin shot it down, like he did the plane missing in the Indian Ocean, Pacific, Straits of Malacca, South China Sea. That’s the story they’d feed us.

Not entirely true, on a single engine the ceiling is reduced and according to this link, it would be 22,000′ down from the 32,000′ that the Boeing 777 was at. I am wondering if radio frequencies were jammed at all between the initial hit and the destruction of the aircraft. That would nicely explain the small engine seeking air-to-air missile first, then the cannon to finish off.
Regardless, all this information was known within a day of the crash; I am still curious as to why Russia was, apart from a denial, so quiet?

It was a Boeing, not an Airbus. Regardless, you are correct in asserting that the pilots should have been flying the airplane, not talking with air traffic control, or anyone else. Aircrews are incessantly trained to “aviate, navigate, communicate” in that order.

Since the audio transcripts were never released I have to assume there’s something unpleasant in them. The plane being ordered to change course into a war zone, or the crew reporting an attack, are both plausible options.

Yes in theory , but the procedure in this cases starts with the flight management issues as for example engine and fuel shut off and fire extinguish and recover flight stability , security comes first. After that you comunicate with exterior your “problems”.

But the problem here is service ceiling of the SU25 which is 7000m and the MH17 flew at an altitude of above 10 000 m. It should be impossible to kill that plane with an SU25. How do we explain that? Or do I miss something

The service ceiling info on the SU25 was lowered on Wikipedia by someone ( CIA or similar ). It is a lower level ground attack aircraft in primary role, but oxygen tanks allow the aircraft to fly over 10,000m which is demonstrated in an AF video on Youtube. I believe it was 13,500m that was shown on the altimeter.

…..that the R-60M missile was used first to hit one engine and slow down MH17 and that the SU-25s guns were used later to finish off the airliner.

This is exactly the opinion of Peter Haisenko, former Lufthansa -Pilot. In his interview with Ken-FM he explained that Airline-Pilots are trained to manage this type of events in simulators regularly. He himself affirms that in simulation he was perfectly able to fly and land a two engine airliner with one engine shot off. (He comments sofar that he also managed in simulations to land a 4 engine Airliner with only one of the engines working at the wingtip)
So the attack with cannon afterwards to finish off the cabin and its personnel makes sense.

You are quite correct, and this point has been made many times, yet the altitude myth persists.

Having said that, there is another factor that is little discussed and that may be important. The difficulty in attacking an airliner flying at cruise altitude and speed, with cannon fire from an aircraft like the Su25, is not one of altitude capability, but rather speed capability. This has to do with the design of the wing and a performance factor called the critical mach number. Simply stated, this gives the maximum speed the aircraft can fly. For the Su25 this is probably somewhat slower than a Boeing 777’s cruise speed. This would mean only one frontal attack was possible, because once the Boeing past, the Su25 would not be able to overtake it again, much less maneuver well in front of it to attack it again. This is also why an attack using R-60s most likely occurred after the frontal attack, assuming only one Su25 was involved. This type of missile is IR guided, and most effective in attacking the rear (hot side) of the engines. Of course, this does not rule out the use of multiple Su25s, or the use of other types of interceptor aircraft.

This is the first study that has not make glaring errors of fact or relied on social media “proofs”. But it has weaknesses. It is mistaken in assuming it was the RIGHT engine hit. So the whole sequence of events needs to be rewritten.

When this first happened I spent a lot of time on a forum for pilots, where we went through hundreds of photographs to identify parts and fit them together. We saw them as they fell. The poor Dutch investigators saw them only after they’d been considerably disturbed, and also after a lot of subsequent shelling of the area (so some of the damage, especially bigger holes) may be from that, not from the original event.

This analysis is wrong on the narrow rim with portion of the “RR” logo: They see the hole as moving from tail to nose, therefore it was shot at from behind. The concept that the engine could be shot through from the rear. The bullet would have had to pass through 2 tight fast-spinning turbines and emerge still intact enough to create that “outward” hole. The part is in fact from the LEFT engine. Spin it around, and the hole becomes a front-to-back shot. And having to go through only the single, more widely spaced FRONT TURBINE BLADES. What they maybe don’t know is that BROKEN BLADES FROM THAT TURBINE were found near the same location (Petropavlivka, the first of 3 villages debris fell onto).

The engine cowling hinges open just behind the “RR” logo. The narrow piece shown is the inside “lip” of that cowling section, which broke off taking with it a small piece of the outer skin (with the logo). The large ring, also found at Petropavilvka, is the reinforced front edge of the cowling. That clearly shows shots from the front.

In any case, what’s the point of shooting at the engine from behind? These birds cheerfully keep flying with one engine out. Rather than crippling it, it would just alert the pilots. There was not a single surprise “huh?” out of them (of course IF the ATC handover tape was not doctored).

The aerodynamics The plane is designed to fly on one engine. The auto pilot makes the necessary adjustments. In this case it didn’t — because it could not work, because the avionics bay where all the computers are is UNDER THE COCKPIT and that all got shot to smithereens. The cockpit images show numerous holes UP through the floor; these passed through the avionics bay first.

If one engine stops, with no control inputs, that side of the plane slows down, starting a turn in the direction of the dead engine That wing then stalls and drops, starting a flat spin. We know from the 3 places the wreckage fell that MH17 was headed roughly south-east, then after it was hit it turned north-east almost 90 degrees. This is only possible if the dead engine was on the northern side, ie the LEFT engine. The massive damage on that side also shows the LEFT side took the brunt of whatever it was shot with.

What was hit first? why hit it twice anyway?

1: Just kill the pilots? the plane will keep flying until fuel exhaustion (like MH370).
2: Just kill an engine and maybe cause some decompression? the plane will keep flying etc etc AND the pilots will say “Hey someone just shot us” (they’d see the fighter and put 2 and 2 together).
3: if the possible call for help is not a big issue, it is still necessary to kill the AVIONICS, otherwise the plane will keep flying….. in this case the pilots are only shot coincidentally, because they’re sitting on top of the avionics bay.

The SU-25 does not go too high too well. It makes sense to fire off a missile from some distance, from a lower altitude. Then zoom up and shoot up the front aiming for avionics. This is only a second or so, no time for pilots to even sound surprised. Shooting with cannon first involves turning around to again approach from the front for the missile shot.

On the other hand, the shooter is trained for shooting other fighters. In those, killing the pilot is enough to put it out of action. Yet, he was equipped with a missile which they didn’t normally carry so why not use it? I think he used everything he had, tap-tap, almost simultaneously, to make sure.

Anyway, the engine cowling pieces are from the port engine, and the holes show it was not shot from behind. He approached almost head on, or off a little to the left. And shoot with everything he has, all at once.

I think your analysis will be very close. There seems to be a missile strike plus cannon fire coming from the top left of the aircraft. Also possibly smaller calibre machine gun fire. In this picture the entry angle appears to move from top left to the left were holes are punched from directly side on.
I have not seen the pics where it has been shot from underneath.
Also can a MIG-29 be positively ruled out at this stage? This would have the speed to attack at any angle.

This was not an airspace violation intercept. The fighter didn’t go alongside and politely pointy “get down”, then fire a warning shot, then fire a serious volley and then follow up with a missile.

The intention was to down the plane. So, a single pass and hit it with everything you have. This applies even if it was believed to be some kind of enemy fighter or transport (or the ludicrously unlikely “Putin’s Aeroflot”).

I am not totally excluding accident. 1: Ukrainian fighters had not exercised against other aircraft for about a decade 2: so the pilot would not have experience identifying size/distance by eye 3: plus it was cloudy up there 4: the REBELS had obtained a plane (SU-25) and flown it on a mission on July 13, so there may have been attempts to hunt it down. BUT the orchestration, and particularly the speed, of the political reaction makes this unlikely.

One thing we’ve never had explained. How did the world find out it was SHOT DOWN?
* ATC only knew it disappeared off radar, no call for help. It would normally be an hour before they officially count a plane as “missing”.
* People who saw some plane falling, from a distance, would assume it was yet another Ukie plane shot down and NOT know it was an airliner.
* People who had its wreckage and passengers falling on their heads knew it was some sort of airliner, but not that it was SHOT DOWN.
* assorted media including Western media turned up in a little over an hour… but it was many hours longer before they went to the village that held the parts with the obvious shooting holes.

Blaming Russia or the terrorists is what you’d expect, so nothing odd about that. But you need something to blame them FOR, so how did they known, when did they know, there was a SHOOT-DOWN to blame them for? what if a video turns up next day, a passenger recording a farewell message outlining how he’s taking a bomb on the plane?

I have not found the original yet, but within one or two hours of the plane coming down Anton Gerashenko was claiming it had been shot down by a BUK-M1. Not BUK M1-2 or BUK M2, but a BUK M1.
For this reason I have always thought it must have been hit both from the ground and the air, but as yet there is zero witness evidence of a BUK missile launch.
.
A news report dated 17/7/14
>Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, wrote on Facebook that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher over the country’s east. U.S. officials told NBC News that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, and that intelligence analysts “were trying to determine who launched the missile.”<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/malaysia-airlines-plane-cras_n_5595516.html

Okay, from one of the earliest reports I can find (confusing, as they mostly don’t say what time zone their time-stamps apply to).

“”We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine armed forces did not fire at any targets in the sky,” Poroshenko said in a statement.”

So Poroshenko started the rumour that it was shot down and his people didn’t do it. Then Gerashenko put in the claim that it was a BUK. Both from KIEV with nobody from the government having seen the wreckage.

Obama at this 4-hour mark was just trying to find out if Americans were on it or not. By the 24 hour mark, OSCE was crying they had not been given the “access they expected” (what? red carpet? ) and John McCain (surprise surprise) was making threats“American Senator John McCain said there “would be hell to pay” if the plane was shot down by the Russian military or separatists.

Face book post here by Anton Gerashenko at around 17.50 UTC (facebook time = UTC)https://www.facebook.com/anton.gerashchenko.7/posts/694787050608145
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According to the Dutch ivestigation report the plane was downed at between 13.20/13.21 UTC.http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/701/b3923acad0ceprem-rapport-mh-17-en-interactief.pdf
.
At 01.02 18th approx 10 hours after the crash, Australian PM Abbott made a speech to Australian parliament –
>As things stand, this looks less like an accident than a crime. I want to repeat this: as things stand, this looks less like an accident than a crime. If so, the perpetrators must be brought to justice. So I can inform the House that, as quickly as possible, Australia will be working at the United Nations Security Council for a binding resolution calling for a full and impartial investigation with full access to the site, with full access to the debris, with full access to the black box and with full access to all individuals who might be in a position to shed light on this terrible event. I can also inform the House that the Minister for Foreign Affairs will shortly summons the Russian ambassador to seek a categorical assurance from the ambassador that the Russian government will fully cooperate in this investigation. We owe it to the dead and to their families, we owe it to the peace and stability of the wider world, to establish the facts, and we will do all we humanly can to bring that about.
Let me conclude with this: the bullying of small countries by big ones, the trampling of justice and decency in the pursuit of national aggrandisement, and reckless indifference to human life should have no place in our world.<http://australianpolitics.com/2014/07/18/abbott-shorten-mh17-statements.html
.
As you say, at this stage there was no evidence of the plane being shot down.
As far as I can remember, the only "evidence" of any kind for the first week or so, was what had been posted on social media by Gerashenko.
The only uncertainty in this, was pre-planned or it was a spur of the moment thing and the US had to scramble to put a narrative together.
Abbotts speech I believe was handed to him courtesy of a US representative/embassy.

Interesting analysis. I still think that 2 A-A missiles were probably used. Witnesses reported 2 explosion sounds. Someone who worked at an Ukrainian air field also stated later that he saw an Su-25 take off with 2 missiles and return with none. The plane’s standard load of the missiles is 2 and it is common to fire these in groups of 2 to ensure fatal damage. Against a large aircraft like an airliner, I would expect the pilot to fire both to get max damage right off. Especially if he wanted to reduce the chances of a distress call going out from the crew of the airliner.

I would also expect the missiles to be fired first, with the Su-25 then closing to use the cannon (if used), since the missiles have much longer effective range than the cannon and the attacker would want to cause max damage at max range to lessen the chance of getting spotted and ensure no distress call went out. The time between firing the missiles and closing the range to use cannon would only be a few seconds at the speeds the aircraft were flying, so it would be all over very quickly.

Not the Boeing – the Su-27. Satellite image of the Su-27 has been authenticated. No altitude problems with the Su-27, either. Question is, was the pilot an Israeli or American – and did the orders come from Tel Aviv or Washington? Only additional satellite photos will prove from where to jet fighter took off.

Forgot to put my name on the last reply. With that pic, which is supposed to be from a satellite, I checked at the time, I think I worked on 50km. The altitude of the aircraft is 10 km. Give or take.
Triangulate from a point say 50 km above (though it may be much higher), Two lines from the eye in the sky past the tip and the tail of the fighter aircraft onto the ground. Match the points on the ground with google maps/earth with scale. If the aircraft is at 10km altitude and the camera at 50 km the length of the aircraft will be 80% of the length measured on the ground. If the camera is higher, possibly much higher, the aircraft size will be much closer to the actual ground measurements.

I feel that this pic was planted and then sent to Russian TV to make it look as though Russia itself was trying to fake evidence.

You’re missing the point, KK! Did you visit the “Serpent People” link? There are MANY more important points revealed on my blogs and websites. Don’t get “hung up” on meaningless trivia – and focus on pudding the BIG pieces of “The Puzzle” together. It’s a matter of Life – or Death! (for everyone). There’s more “going on” in the Ukraine (and Fukushima, Washington, Tel Aviv, Syria, etc.) than meets the eye – even the eye of Colonel Cassad, the Saker, RT, TASS, PCR, John Pilger, David Duke, David Icke, Ken O’Keefe, James Fetzer, other VT writers and most self-declared “Truth Seekers”! (DECEPTION is everywhere). Remember this KEY point: THEY LIVE! Do you know about Montalk?

What we do on this blog is handle one topic at a time. Sometimes people post fresh news on the current/latest thread, but for detailed discussion we try to keep to the topic.

The topic in this case is MH17. I just told you that your “authenticated” data is not true at all, because the whole image is FAKE and provably so. Coming back to tell me about Fukishima and serpent people is not exactly on topic. Checking the veracity of information BEFORE BELIEVING IT is not “trivia” — it is VITAL. You’ll go totally crazy if you’re going to believe every lie, every fairy story and every photoshopped “proof” some stranger posts on the internet.

The cannon shoot down is bunk. The shot group on that panel is way too tight for the holes to have been made by a jet’s cannon firing at a moving target form 3 to 5 thousand meters… anybody with basic ballistic and marksmanship knowledge would know this. Those holes were most likely caused by shrapnel.

If you did a little research, you would know that none of the missiles that were available in the area that day, carried shrapnel that is round. They all have square, recteangular, or H shaped shrapnel packed around the exploding charge. There are numerous perfectly round holes in the fuselage of the wrecked airliner that cannot be explained away by missile damage.

During the past 2 years, there was an article about the Su-25 in the British magazine “Air International”.

The article stated that after dropping its munitions, the Su-25 can accelerate to supersonic speed in a climb. It further pointed out that the US Air Force A-10 Warthog was incapable of performing this feat.

I know it is a little far fetched, but I can’t help being puzzled by 2 things.
MH370 – and why the US refused to help with satellite data long before MH17.
And why MH17 was off course.

Given Stuxnet was developed after 9/11 to bring down one potential kind of mega-threat, surely a lot of time and money must have gone into a software virus that might control or at least distort the flight plans of a Boeing.

One flight goes off course for no particulary reason and the US go silent on the matter, Another goes off course for a good reason and more silence.

Check in History what was stripped out… a lot of writing from a guy with some very extreme conspiracy theories based on imagination rather than fact. Briefly, a patent for an idea is no evidence a working item has been produced; something only patented in 2003 is unlikely to have been fitted to “All Boeings made since 1995”. The “working controller” appears to have been on a model in a wind tunnel, not a real plane.
Lufthansa stripping out all the Boeing computers and rewriting the software is HILARIOUS. They’d not even know half the sensors the computers get input from, never mind the necessary combinations of controls to achieve normal flight. The flight control computers are the “heart” of the plane, not something outsiders can just make their own version of.

They don’t make anything uninterruptable for airliners. Even the transponder can be unplugged., They can pull the circuit breaker on every component in the event of sparking or fire, which has saved a few planes over the years.

Right, the ZioAngloNazis are trying to slowly shove the MH17 event under the carpet – and *any* distraction would do.

For instance, just ten days ago they resurrected the (again Malaysian!) MH370 (≠ MH17 – hoping we won’t notice) from the bottom of Indian Ocean (or from wherever it RIP-s since March 2014) – and landed it squarely on – Biakonur Spaceport – with Putin as the highjacker!!…

It seems that the “international” investigators only have rudimentary puzzle solving skills necessary to figure out how the parts fit together. From what I have read many of the critical parts were even left back at the crash site to ensure failure.

Really disappointed that there isn’t any attempt to employ standard material science techniques to determine the composition and providence of the projectiles. Why haven’t these dutch idiots contacted a decent laboratory to conduct WD-XRF (1) , GDMS and even ion-trap-MS (2)

This site seems to attract the cream of the crop. I don’t have the skill, time or incentive to delve deep into the M17 case. But I have spent a fair amount of amateur time on 9/11 and I’m convinced that Dr. Judy Wood is correct about what really happened. She doesn’t go into the who’s and why’s in any detail, but she covers the what? with pictures of the evidence and I don’t see how they can be refuted.

Another thought, until Malaysia become part of the official secret investigation, they were making a bit of noise.
I would keep an eye on New Straits Times. After they joined all went.
What,s the dirty deal? They get the triggerman?
I take it for granted now that any embarrassing bits of the investigation (for the US and subsidiaries) will be classified.

Sadly, events much larger than MH17 have been successfully put into the memory hole. 9/11 had an order of magnitude more victims and didn’t happen in a distant war zone with almost no witnesses.
9/11 was downtown Manhattan on a crystal clear day, live on TV, and required massive planning across several fields of expertise and action, while the official narrative required the suspension Newtonian mechanics.
Nevertheless, I’ve literally watched talented professional engineers close to me squirm and evade the facts facing them. “Yeah, well, hmm, that does look odd… I’m sure there’s an explanation…” followed by silent staring into a coffee cup.
I’ve seen it often enough to come to the conclusion that to accept the truth is simply terrifying to them. It forces them out of their much cherished comfort zone. It means they have throw a few of their favorite babies out with the bathwater and so they they strive to return to a psychological space where they don’t feel compelled to do something about it.

MH17 is long gone off everyone’s radars. Only us Grassy-knollers even remember MAH370.
The people who pull these things off have the sheeples’ psyche down pat. There really is no limit to what they can do without repercussions. Even if the Dutch (non)investigators leaked/published the pilot’s autopsy report along with photos of his bullet riddled body, the sheep will chat about it around the water cooler for a day and wander off to graze placidly.

Still, I believe that it imperative that these people be stopped somehow, and I can’t see a way except for the Grassy-knollers to continue to spread what we know until society’s cognitive dissonance rises to a level where the odds of repercussions rises to an unacceptable level.

Supposedly some of the Ukrainian SU-25 were modernised with engines from Mig 29A .(first productional series of MIG 29) If it is so then reaching altitude of 10000 meters and more isn,t problem despite a claims that Su 25 cannot fly abowe 7500 meters.Oxigen system is not such a problem to be installed in this aircraft,because there is already prepared mounts and pipes for that system to be installed in this aircraft. SU-25 cannot take great amount of fuel to sustain long flights, they hawe enough fuel to one or two missions without refueling, fully armed(at all ten hardpoints, with weapons on them),but with a aircraft gun and a pair of two short range R-60 rockets this is really another story. Dear Saker, and the Saker community please comment my post!

This is an amazingly detailed analysis.
March 5, 2015 at 2:06 PM
Dan Lynch said…

My only qualm with Cassad is his assumption that the SU-25 used its machine gun first, and then launched a missile to finish the job.

There are a couple of problems with this.

— machine gun is not so accurate (tho it may have been guided by either laser or by tracers) so it would take some luck to machine gun plane without giving pilots time to call Mayday.

— SU25 would have needed to climb to MH17’s altitude and approach within a few hundred years. Possible with some SU25’s or with old SU25 & oxygen mask, but a stretch.

— I find it easier to believe the Saker’s theory that the SU25 first launched a missile, the missile took out at least one engine, the plane lost speed and altitude, and then the SU25 finished it off with its machine gun.

Bear in mind that if the SU25 did initiate hostility with its machine gun at a few hundred yards distance, as Cassad claims, that’s not a case of mistaken identity, that’s cold blooded murder.
March 5, 2015 at 4:05 PM
Tom Hickey said…

If I were the pilot, I would have positioned myself to fire at the cockpit while simultaneously launching a missile, figuring the missile would bring the aircraft down and the cannon fire would finish off the crew before they could report the attack. A heat-seeking missile would hit the engine but not necessarily destroy the aircraft in the air simultaneously, and if it did not, one of the pilots could radio their predicament. On the other hand, the MH17-control tower tapes have never been released.

Regarding the ceiling, an aircraft would not have been dispatched in the first place if it could not do the job. In this scenario, MH17 would have had to be positioned lower than assumed, or the plane would have had to be capable of the altitude.
March 5, 2015 at 4:42 PM
Tom Hickey said…

What I find particularly curious is that almost immediately the Ukrainians and Atlanticists rushed to judgment that Putin did it. This was repeated with the assassination of Boris Nemtsov. Thus far, the facts regarding both are unclear.

The Ukrainians and the Atlanticists (NATO government and military leaders) have claimed large numbers of Russian troops and tanks have invaded Ukraine without presenting credible evidence. Based on reports from the front and OCSE observers their has been large scale Russian presence in the fighting, which is between the separatists and the Ukrainian Armed forces and volunteer battalions.

In addition, the Atlanticists have either ignored or denied the presence of neo-Nazi extremists in the coup and the subsequent Ukrainian government and fighting forces, as well as the use of Nazi symbols and paraphernalia.

And as with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the media is not asking relevant questions but rather staying on message.
March 5, 2015 at 4:58 PM
Roger Erickson said…

If this is ever reviewed in the mainstream media, they’ll also revisit what really brought the World Trade Center down on 9/11.

Just like the Saker, and come to think of it certainly more so, I am also not an expert in these matters.

That is probably why, I do not understand and did not see discussed above, why the Ukrainian military would use a BUK radar to guide the fighter jet to the airliner. The civilian and military air traffic control should be able to track an unsuspecting airliner anyway, I would think. And if the fighter knows where it itself is, it should find the airliner without a BUK radar below, right?

Or does it have to be there just in case the target is only wounded and blowing it out of the sky with your own radar guided BUKs is better than have it land in Russia and tell the world a Russian made fighter plane with no markings tried to shoot it down?

Would I rather try to spin the unmarked Russian fighter plane or the BUK missiles fired from my positions?

I do not think it matters much and therefore I would probably rather not deploy the BUKs because they might be more of a liability and less of an asset propaganda-wise, unless I need to kill that plane for more than a PR move.

And if I have a BUK missile ready in the area, and want to shoot down a plane, and blame it on someone else’s BUK missile, why would I use a fighter, that might or might not be ideally suited for the job?

That does not make any sense to me.

It might be that I do not dare realize how stupid the average empire master thinks the average empire minion is, but if you wanted to frame someone for shooting somebody else, and you had a gun and a baseball bat ready to kill the victim, why would you smash his head in with the bat? Just for the fun of it? With an oxygen mask on at 15000 feet and slowly freezing to death in your unpressurised cockpit with a rock-hard erection in your left hand and the thumb of your right hand on the trigger for the small heat seeking missile…

The Boeing 777 was initially at 33,000 feet. The aircraft, therefore, was above the Su-25’s ceiling, as listed at wikipedia. (Service ceiling: 7,000 m (22,965 ft) clean, 5,000 m (16,000 ft) with max weapons) I am aware of the Comments both that this is an artificial, CIA-changed figure and that Su-25 pilots have reached at least 30,000 feet with supplemental oxygen. For the purpose here, it does not matter.

I am presuming the Su-25 was carrying only two R-60 air-to-air missiles, which are low drag. So, the service ceiling in this case would have been around 21-22,000 feet. (The upgrades to the Su-25 did not include engine or aerodynamic changes, so are unlikely to have increased the ceiling.)

The 777 was well within reach of the R-60s, though (66,000 ft, Mach 2.7). As a non-maneuvering, transport aircraft, it would have been laughably easy to hit. I would have salvoed both missiles, both for increased hit-chance and to avoid coming back with only one missile (very noticeable, as opposed to just empty pylons).

The above would tie-in with ret. Col Zhilin’s testimony. Most reports indicate the accompanying-fighter was closing from the rear, which is the most advantageous for infrared guidance. With infrared guidance, the missile would home-in directly on the hottest area – the engine exhaust. The warhead would probably detonate in the exhaust cone or adjacent to it. In the Boeing 777, the engine is slung well out in front of the wing. The expanding-rod warhead would rip up the engine but probably not take out the wing or flight control cabling.

The ‘hit’ (or hits) might indeed be survivable. Today’s jet engines are built with FAA-mandated ‘containment shields’. They are meant to contain high-velocity fan/compressor/turbine blades if something causes them to shear off. They are basically armored ‘cans’ surrounding the rotating parts. A missile detonating inside this ‘can’ might have the expanding-rods contained, rather than punching through the nacelle and into the fuselage. If detonating on the far side of the ‘can’ from the fuselage, much the same result…

Also, Zhilin says, “…the Boeing turned 180 degrees to the left.” This would be the direct result of losing thrust on the left engine. The pilots were probably more concerned with staying in the air (under control) than their heading…

After the 777’s engine was hit and disabled by the R-60, the 777 would have descended to around 15-16,000 feet. That is the standard one-engine-out ‘cruise’ altitude as above. It may have been lower with the damage. If I were the pilot, I would have been on a circling descent through and below that altitude, looking for a nearby airport or good field. Since the R-60 has such a small warhead, the pilots may not even have known they were hit by a missile and assumed a simple engine-out problem. That could account for the lack of initial reporting.

This descent would have put the 777 well within the Su-25’s (wikipedia) altitude capability. So, it would have been possible at that point to conduct a ‘strafing’ run with the 30mm cannon. With the 777 turning, that may have presented the opportunity for whatever angle shot the fighter pilot wanted. As various Commenters have noted, there seems to have been a concentration on the cockpit and avionics bay. (Grrr.)

Unfortunately, with the ‘secrecy agrement’ in place, I see no way that any important evidence will be revealed, barring a Snowden-like mass-release by someone with a Conscience…

Ray, have a browse through the photos. Choose Albums, and start with the old ones, about one scroll down. Those 5 are from the first 3 days, before parts had been moved around and, more importantly, before they’d been subjected to months of further shelling.https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jeroenakkermans/sets/

You’ll find the engines in the pictures of the large blackened/burning area. There are views from various angles. Neither is damaged enough to have had a full missile worth of rods inside. In the analysis we have here, about halfway down, are two parts of the cowling, both with a few holes. These were found at the first of the 3 villages it fell on. There were also a few broken pieces from the MAIN FRONT blades. I don’t see evidence for a missile up the back.

Extensive damage to the LEFT side of the cockpit (side pieces and windshield were “assembled” photographically) show a big hit from that direction, with fewer holes the further back you get. Fuselage tore (probably on strike lines) from the decompression, and large parts of it peeled off. These actually landed back-track from the estimated impact spot, floating like sails on the wind.

Those pilots were dead already. And so was the avionics bay under their feet. So it lost that initial altitude in a flat yaw, forward fuselage gone, losing business class passengers, then just the cockpit over the next village. The remaining fuselage being wide open, but centre of gravity moved substantially aft, it leveled off enough to proceed to the third village, where it lost the tail, left wingtip, rear fuselage and more passengers, before it finally crashed and burned.

Without giving full credence to the witness who saw the plane go out with the missiles…what he said would apply to any other missiles in Ukraine’s possession…. he said they were rarely taken for a flight, because they were so old, some propellant leaked from them every trip. So the pilot would not even be sure they’d work., So he would MOST CERTAINLY let rip with both.

They MUST KNOW, Both pilots and a first class passenger had shrapnel in them which they’ve had analysand. The more they keep it quiet, the more certain it is that it looks bad… for one of the parties to the inquiry.

So what can be happening? Russia has published radar recordings, the 25 show at least a Ukrainian SU in close proximity of MH 017. This corresponds with the statement of the lost Spanish controller that has seen two Ukrainian fighter aircraft in the immediate vicinity of the MH 017. Consider the armament of the SU 25: It is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, fight record: 250 rounds anti-tank fire or splinter-explosive projectiles, in a defined order a Gliederzerfallgurt are attached. The cockpit of the MH 017 has been fired from two sides: the entry and exit holes on the same page.

Bullet holes in the outer skin

Now just imagine what happens when a series of armored fire and splinter-explosive projectiles hitting the cockpit, which are after all designed so that they can destroy a tank. The tanks fire shells are partially escape across the cockpit from the other side slightly deformed again. Finally, their clout is designed for a solid armor. However, the splinter-explosive projectiles will explode inside the cockpit, so they are designed. With the rapid fire sequence of GSh-302 cannon, there is therefore in a very short time a rapid succession of explosions within the cockpit area, each of which is sufficient to destroy a tank.

Graze on the wing

Because the interior of a commercial aircraft is a hermetically sealed chamber, the pressure inside the aircraft in a split second will rise to extreme levels by these explosions. But the aircraft is not equipped. It will burst like a balloon. This declaration results in a coherent picture. The largely intact fragments of the rear sections are broken at the points that are based on the construction breakup most likely under extreme pressure. The image of the widely scattered debris field and the brutally damaged cockpit segment fit to do so. Furthermore, a wing segment shows traces of a grazing shot, which directly leads to extension to the cockpit.
…

Entry And Exit holes from bullets in the area of the Cockpit. This is not speculation, but analysis of clear facts: the cockpit shows clear evidence of bullet holes. You can see the entry holes and some exit points. The edges of the bullet holes are bent inwards, these are much smaller and round in shape. A 30mm calibre. The exit holes are less well formed and the edges are torn outwards. Furthermore it is visible that the exit holes have torn the double aluminium skin and bent them outwards. That is to say, splinters from inside the cockpit blew through the outside of the cabin. The open rivets have also been bent outwards… There is only one conclusion one can make, and that is that this: the aircraft was not hit by a missile. The damage to the aircraft is exclusively in the cockpit area…

http://www.tatoott1009.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/UntitledJK14.jpg
This is a photo of one 777 engine core – the compressor/combustor/turbine – without the large fan segment on the front, which no doubt broke off in the initial moment. This engine core forms a heavy, strong ‘shaft’. This core would ‘spear’ into the soft, farmland-type soil at any but small impact angles. The fact that it is on the surface proves a ‘shallow’ impact angle. (The ‘bending back’ angle of the frontal plane of this core suggests an impact angle of 30-40 degrees, but this could be due to the torque forces ripping off the fan segment.)

Vineyardsaker article:

Today (July 23), Anna-News published an interview with a Russian Air Force retired colonel Aleksand Zhilin who is a frequent military commentator on the conflict in Ukraine. The most important information is stated at 2:00-5:00 in the interview.

According to the colonel, at 16:19:45, a Ukrainian jet fighter targeted the Boeing with an air-to-air missile R-60. The missile damaged the right engine of the Boeing. The Boeing was hit, but still managed to stay in the air. However, in doing so, the Boeing turned 180 degrees to the left. It was at this moment that the false flag attack started falling apart. According to Zhilin, part of the plan controlled by the US with Ukrainian hands executing it was to have the Boeing crash past the southern frontline by the Ukrainian-Russian border. Had the Boeing fallen there, securing the crash sites with the troops in response to international pressure was on top of all else effectively allow Kiev to lift the encirclement of its brigades in the southern pocket by the Russian border.

When, however, the Boeing started to turn in the opposite direction and was still apparently manageable, “the US-Ukrainian headquarters of the special operation panicked and order the BUK battery to destroy the plane in the air in order to pre-empt the possibility of the Boeing’s emergency landing.” A BUK missile was fired and the plane was then finally destroyed.

The disclosure of the Russian electronic intelligence (in fact, only one part of it) on July 21 put the US against the wall. The existence of this intelligence and other data also means that the US cannot show the real intelligence, which they also have, including the data from their electronic warfare exercise SEA BREEZE 2014 and the data from their spy satellite, which just happened to be over the area during the downing of the Malasysian Boeing.

The other relevant information, which the Russian colonel revealed, was that the Malaysian Boeing was insured for $97 million against damages or losses as a result of military actions.

Back in July 2014, I wrote:

You know, after reviewing many MH17 crash-site pictures, something is ‘odd’. Of the pictures I’ve seen, nowhere is there any ‘cratering’. Even the massive engine pieces, which are the heaviest concentrated weights, are only a few inches into farmland-type soil. In the ‘burn’ area, which is where I imagine the heaviest wing-body structure came down, there is also no evidence of cratering. A 777 weighs around half a million pounds. I would have expected more ‘punch’…

Aerodynamically, it is also ‘odd’. If the aircraft ‘arrowed’ in, I would expect a concentrated crater with little of large structure remaining. Engine cores would be 10-20 feet underground. If the aircraft ‘fluttered’ in, I would expect large pieces but major skid marks in the soil. Neither seems to match the debris & soil evidence in the photos I’ve seen so far. I will be interested to see reconstructed ‘descent paths’.

Based on the aircraft coming down in at least three separate locations, the sequence appears to be: Something caused the greater cockpit area to separate. Something a bit later, possibly lateral forces, caused the tail section to separate. These were at altitude. The fuselage ‘tube’, most of the wings, and the strong wing/fuselage structure ‘fluttered’ to the ground, shedding along the way. Pure chance caused it to be in an almost level part of the dive/swoop sequence as it hit. Non-survivable, except by chance. Damn them…

So, I agree with that aspect of your analysis…

To me, the fact that engine/nacelle debris came down at the ‘earliest’ location points to a hit on an engine – likely the left engine, given the immediate turn to the left. In my opinion, the ‘shots’ were taken from the rear aspect – both because of the report of an Su-25 in trail behind the 777 and the fact that the R-60 had a limited frontal engagement capability. It is possible that one missile exploded adjacent to the cockpit, although the holes appear more strafing-style than rod-impact-style. The other missile must have detonated somewhere by/at the left engine, both to cause the loss in altitude and the left turn. Exactly ‘where’ may have to await analysis. I would point out that bullets/shrapnel can pass clear through an engine without having to go through the turbine/compressor ‘core’. That ‘area’ is a comparatively small cross-section compared with the engine diameter. Nacelle ‘hits’, especially.

Also, the R-60 may have detonated aft of the turbine blades. In the below photo, you can see the tail cone of the engine and the engine nozzle protruding behind the turbine section. The missile could have detonated anywhere in this area, and still ‘cut up’ the engine enough to force a shutdown. There may never have been “a full missile worth of rods inside” the rotating section…http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/4/4/2/1134244.jpg

I did just have another thought. If it was a BUK missile, it had a closing speed of Mach 4 or so. The arriving shrapnel would be traveling at that speed +/- the aircraft speed. They would rip through 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick aluminum skin like it wasn’t there and likely through the opposite wall as well (as well as a half dozen additional walls). So, there may be just as many ‘entrance’ wounds as ‘exit’ wounds, if it was BUK missile shrapnel. It would take trajectory analysis as well as finding embedded shrapnel to sort it out. (I do find the non-reporting of an ascending smoke trail to be ‘damning’ as far as a BUK launch…)

Kat Kan, thanks for the intriguing discussion. Eventually, the internet community will provide a self-consistent ‘back up’ to compare the official ‘findings’ to. (Hopefully, all the above will have been input accurately-enough not to be chaotic. *grin*)

Ray
I’ve rejected Hasenko a number of times, for making basic mistakes in fact. I particularly liked the various stories about how it was shot at from the right side, when that showed no damage.
Go back to this onehttp://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/List_of_MH17_airframe_parts
and do an internal search for MH17. You’ll find other pages, with most of the good stuff on the talk pages, not on the front.

The same site also has a dozen detailed pages on the Odessa massacre, if you’re interested in that. WARNING very graphic images.

Thank you, Kat Kan, I will check out the Comments on the site you mentioned. I did notice Hasenko’s discrepancy (“right side”) when I read it, long ago. I am interested in what else you may have problems with, as the Su-25 in trail assertion is quite critical…

I was more-or-less just ‘uncovering’ old stuff that I had posted on other blogs, and just throwing them up here, en-mass, in case others did not know or had forgotten them.

I am curious about how the Kiev traffic controller ‘epic’ has evolved. Has ‘he’ been definitively shown to be a real figure, or contrariwise a ‘planted’ story by one faction or another? I have not tracked that story in a long time. Any ‘updates’? Thanks.

Really need to look into the Spanish guy a bit more. There were lots of indication at the time that he’s not real, but apparently the account was old, and recently I got a tip about where he used to post, so I need to find that. Check back this thread in a week or so. Hang around anyway, other interesting stuff here daily.

Rather than focus on the exact method it was shot down, I am more interested in why and how the flight was directed, apparently right after it entered Ukrainian airspace, to fly some 2-300 miles north of the usual corridor for long distance commercial flights in E. Ukraine, that took them over the Sea of Azov. MH17 was also directed to lower it’s altitude from 35k to 33k (which may be of critical importance for an intended Su-25 interception, I have no idea).

Presumably a very detailed ambush point was aimed at and executed, as the perpetrators clearly wanted the plane to go down in NAF area. But this left little room for error as the transit distance across that part of Novorussia is around 100 miles, and a 777 flies at some 640 mph… which gives a 9 minute window, or less, as shooting it down to close to the border with Russia risks having some or all of the debris field landing across that border. As it was, it was very close–some 40 miles from that border–4 minutes more and it would have made it to that border.

I’m no aviation expert, but I would have thought that simply rupturing the main pressurized hull, resulting in explosive decompression at 33,000 feet, would see the plane pretty much unzip itself and disintegrate in any case. Riddling the cockpit with cannon-fire right after that may have just been a fail-safe for the ambush rather than actually needed at the time.

In any case the entire ambush looks rather risky–it needed to be decisively intercepted in the middle of a 9 minute period of time, with far from optimal interceptors as has been noted here. There was little room for error to achieve the headlines they wished to generate; i.e.”Pro-Russian Terrorist Shoot Down of Passenger Jet in Donbass.”

And if such a detailed ambush point was set-up from the moment the plane entered west Ukraine airspace, why did they risk having the operation’s cover blown with this Spanish ATC on shift in Kiev?

Decompression would kill the passengers (and pilots eventually) but the plane would keep flying on autopilot, possibly for a long time. There is a case of plane flying for a good while and landing safely with the roof ripped off.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243

The pilots don’t necessarily have to be killed right away. But the computers do, so the autopilot will stop flying the plane. These are kept in the avionics bay, which is a section right under the pilots’ feet. So the cockpit area needs to be shot up. After that any kind of damage is enough, as a damaged plane with nobody (machine or human) flying it WILL crash.

The Saker was thinking at the time it may have been intended to have it crash in Russia. It’s hard to work out which would have been a better result, from the false flag point of view. If it made it 10 or more miles into Russia, of course, Russia could be blamed automatically.

Kat Kan, your logic on the need to take out the avionics bay is flawless.

However, I have a personal opinion that the avionics bay might just have been riddled as part of shooting up the cockpit. ‘Collateral damage’, as it were. I base this opinion on the likelihood that the Ukrainians just grabbed a pilot ‘patsy’ and told him to shoot down the 777. (He may not even known about the ‘kill intent’ until he was told to do so, just below the 777.) This would have been someone trained for ground attack, not jetliner interception. So, what we know about the avionics box might not have been in his knowledge base. But, ‘kill the pilots’ would be.

The alternative, of course, is that a cold-blooded killer (Ukrainian or otherwise) stepped into the cockpit with full foreknowledge of what he was supposed to do. “Just business…” This takes it way beyond Ukrainian shenanigans into an international JFK-style ‘hit’, complete with professional assassins.

I am not naive, and the latter certainly could be the case. I just find it likelier to postulate that an easily-offed local pilot would be used, rather than to have to horizontalize one of their trained killers if needed. Just a personal opinion, as I said. Time will tell…

Really need to look into the Spanish guy a bit more. There were lots of indication at the time that he’s not real, but apparently the account was old, and recently I got a tip about where he used to post, so I need to find that.

Check back this thread in a week or so. Hang around anyway, other interesting stuff here daily.

Just 4 months after MH370 everyone knew a plane keeps flying if the autopilot keeps working, lot of details about where it is etc. Now say it’s mistaken identity, he had to shoot without seeing it well (in and out of clouds), he hears the missile hit, comes out of the cloud and see what he hit.

“Oh hell I’m in deep doggy do now if they radio that I shot them….. ” going to crash anyway, so finish if off with a few rounds of cannon to the cockpit. More or less by reflex in 1/2 a second.

But someone wanted something shot down that day — they made him take up the leaky missiles.

Hi, Kat Kan. I am not disputing your logic about the need to take out the avionics box. I am only pointing out that if it was just a run-of-the-mill ground attack pilot, he may have just been going for the pilots and took-out the avionics box as a ‘bonus’. If it was a ‘professional hit’, though, then the box may have been discussed in advance and been a priority.

I am absolutely in the camp that says this was premeditated. Sending up a ground-attack aircraft with only a missile load speaks volumes. Also, I do not believe the innocent shooting-through-clouds scenario. EVERY pilot knows 30-35,000 feet is civil transport cruise altitude. Whoever the pilot was, he knew he was launching a missile at a jetliner.

If the pilot was a ‘patsy’, he may have been recruited into the plot by superiors or shadow-ops types ‘informing’ him that some important person (Putin?) or cargo would be in/on an aircraft following that flight path. A chance to Strike Back – But only if you don’t ask questions. Trust us…

(As a total aside, what are you talking about as regards leaky missiles? It is my understanding that the R-60 is a solid-fuel missile. Could you be talking about fluids powering the flight control surfaces, or fluids cooling the infrared seeker?)

The two-part article “Flight MH17, the unanswered questions” goes into great detail on the efforts by Ukraine, UN, OSCE and the crash investigation team to not find any answers that might point to a Ukraine fighter jet destroying MH17.

The supposed squashed shrapnel could be anything. There is nothing to indicate where the picture was taken, and nothing explained about where it was found. Did the person find it on the ground? was it on a display marked by what it is? or by where in the wreckage it was supposedly found? why is there not something beside it to indicate size or scale?

and hahaha “Russia and Putin are to be tried for all the military crimes conducted by the Russian aggressors. Kremlin rulers will not be able to wash off their black souls and reputations from the responsibility for the downed Boeing.
haha a sentence like that rather gives away the site as being anti-Russian … in fact censor.net is one of the best known pro-Kiev propaganda sites.

‘Suspicious’ fragments
“The debris was still lying unattended in an extensive, not enclosed area. I found more ‘suspicious’ fragments among the cockpit remains. Fragments that didn’t seem to belong to the airplane. Eddy van Exel not only is my camera man, but also my witness. I took the fragments for research.”

International experts endorse the conclusions of the forensic investigation. Defence experts of IHS Jane’s in London look into all weapon systems worldwide. They regard the damaged and deformed fragment below as a first piece of evidence. According to them the fragment directly belongs to the pay load of a 9M317 BUK missile, the modern version of the BUK 1-2 system. Expert Nicolas De Larrinaga: “From the hour-glass form we can gather all the characteristics of an impact of a 9N314 warhead fragment. This fits perfect

Now that is marginally better. Akkermans did the best ever series of detailed photos of the crash and debris.

All the same… a few tiny pieces, examined for what? metal composition? how many things are made of the same type o metal?

One big problem is the date when the pieces s\were piked up — November. That is 4 months after the crash. Four months during which that entire area was shelled, with howitzer, GRAD and other rocket fire. Four months when anyone could walk around and move things around, and in fact did so, as photos from the various OSCE and investigator visits showed less and less remaining debris each time.

If the scraps are from some rocket casing, it still doesn’t prove what type or when it got there.

The Dutch team said there were some 25 pieces of metal fragments in the pilots’ bodies. Those are not likely to have entered months later. Those are the ones that need to be examined. So where are the results on that?

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